The Scapegoat; a romance and a parable eBook

Ben Aboo knew his awful fate. Gesticulating wildly,
having flung the money-bags from him, slobbering and
screaming, the blighted soul was seen to raise his
eyes towards the black sky, his thick lubber lips
working visibly, as if in wild invocation of heaven.
At the next instant the stones began to fall on him.
Slowly they fell at first, and he reeled under them
like a drunken man; the back of his neck arched itself
like the neck of a bull, and like the roar of a bull
was the groan that came from his throat. Then
they fell faster, and he swayed to and fro, and grunted,
with his beard bobbing at his breast, and his tongue
lolling out. Faster and faster, and thicker and
thicker they showered upon him, darting out of the
darkness like swallows of the night. His clothes
were rent, his blood spirted over them, he staggered
as a beast staggers in the slaughter, and at length
his thick knees doubled up, and he fell in a round
heap like a ball.

The ferocity of the crowd was not yet quelled.
They hailed the fall of Ben Aboo with a triumphant
howl, but their stones continued to shower upon his
body. In a little while they had piled a cairn
above it. Then they left it with curses of content
and went their ways. When the Spanish soldiers,
who had stood aside while the work was done, came up
with their lanterns to look at this monument of Eastern
justice, the heap of stones was still moving with
the terrific convulsions of death.

Such was the fall of El Arby, nicknamed Ben Aboo.

CHAPTER XXVIII

“ALLAH-U-KABAR”

Travelling through the night,—­Naomi laughing
and singing snatches in her new-found joy, and the
Mahdi looking back at intervals at the huge outline
of Tetuan against the blackness of the sky,—­they
came to the hut by Semsa before dawn of the following
day. But they had come too late. Israel
ben Oliel was not, after all, to set out for England.
He was going on a longer journey. His lonely
hour had come to him, his dark hour wherein none could
bear him company. On a mattress by the wall he
lay outstretched, unconscious, and near to his end.
Two neighbours from the village were with him, and
but for these he must have been alone—­the
mighty man in his downfall deserted by all save the
great Judge and God.

What Naomi did when the first shock of this hard blow
fell upon her, what she said, and how she bore herself,
it would be a painful task to tell. Oh, the irony
of fate! Ay, the irony of God! That scene,
and what followed it, looked like a cruel and colossal
jest—­none the less cruel because long drawn
out and as old as the days of Job.

It was useless to go out in search of a doctor.
The country was as innocent of leechcraft as the land
of Canaan in the days of Abraham. All they could
do was to submit, absolutely and unconditionally.
They were in God’s hands.